A New York City man convicted of raping his former stepdaughter was sentenced to 18 years in prison in a Brooklyn court on Monday. He was charged after the victim wrote about her ordeal in her college admissions essay.

The 62-year-old man (the Associated Press hasn't released his name to protect the identity of the victim) raped his former stepdaughter when she was as young as eight years old. Years later, she wrote in her essay:

I never told anyone ... at that point in my life, I was scared. ... At first I thought he was OK, but as the years progressed he really was not. Toward the end of the marriage he began to rape me.

She wrote the essay in 2012, and her mother, who had already divorced the perpetrator and remarried, called the police after reading it.

The man maintains that he didn't rape the victim, and his lawyer has argued that the victim wrote the essay just to get attention from a college admissions committee.

The victim, at least, feels relieved by the sentencing. She sent a statement to the court which reads, "Getting closure and justice on this horrible situation has been the best that could come from it. [After testifying,] I felt like a weight has been lifted from my shoulders. I feel a lot happier than before. I will not forget what happened, but I will move on from it."